Apple Opens Up Full Manual Camera Controls to Developers in iOS 8

Apple has taken iPhoneography very seriously, and with iOS 8 it has opened up camera controls to developers. This means photographers can finally customize ISO, shutter speed, and more, Joshua Ho of AnandTech emphasizes.

Iphone rear camera

This is a major departure from the previous limited camera controls: toggle for HDR, toggle to switch cameras, toggle to record video, and AE/AF lock. Starting this fall, when iOS 8 goes public, Apple’s AVCaptureDevice APIs will enable camera apps similar to what we’ve seen on Nokia’s Pro Camera or HTC Sense 6 camera app, says Joshua Ho.

Essentially, Apple will let developers play with every manual camera control possible: ISO, shutter, speed, focus, white balance and exposure bias, EV bracketing, and shutter bracketing. Furthermore, all of them can be manually adjusted in a custom camera app.

White balance is now also fully manual, something that was previously only limited to Windows Phone and HTC’s custom camera application. Apple went into deep detail regarding the implementation of this manual color balance, which effectively skews based upon RGB gain at a low level, but can be converted to Kelvin through the API that is opened up. This, in addition to the “gray world” white balance, allows further control of how a shot will come out.

Apple is expected to launch two new iPhone models sometime this fall. If we can believe the rumour mill, it will skip the pixel race, which won’t look good for tech-spec hunters, but it is reportedly planning other improvements such as an enhanced image sensor and optical image stabilization.

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